


Merry Christmas, John

by dioscureantwins



Series: After the Fall [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sexual Fantasy, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:18:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dioscureantwins/pseuds/dioscureantwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As he straightens, the absence of Christmas decorations strikes him, so different from last year. John and Mrs Hudson overdid the decorating a bit and he felt he owed it to himself to disparage their efforts, but he actually liked it. Now he knows he liked it because it had made John happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merry Christmas, John

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: the lovely swissmarg. I want to thank her very much for her help and advice. Any remaining mistakes are mine of course  
> Thanks to: the wonderful stardust_made. Her writing induced me to come out here and try some of my own. She was an enormous help shaping this fic  
> This fic was written for the 221B_advent at LJ

_I’ll be home for Christmas …_

John’s arm shoots out from the jumbled tangle of sheets to hit the mute button on the clock radio and silence the sugary cooing of Elvis Presley.

Christ, that awful day he’s dreaded so much for the past few weeks has arrived. It’s Christmas. Why didn’t he think to reset the alarm? God, why ask stupid questions? Because he fell down, dead drunk, in his bed last night – that’s why. The last few weeks have been nothing but work, and getting aled up during his evenings.

He sits up and groans as sharp sparks start flashing in front of his eyes. He clasps his hands on both sides of his head , then holds it gingerly. The cold air of the room makes him shiver as it wraps itself around his torso, which is covered with a thin film of sweat. Every evening he slips between the freshly-laundered sheets of a bed that could be held up to any aspiring cadet in the army as a shiny example of the art of proper bed-making. And every night John manages to reduce the fine display to a sorry, sodden mess with his twisting and turning and sweating. 

And the addition of other bodily fluids as well. He looks down, revolted, at the traces of his nightly release clinging to his stomach, and shudders as he remembers the dream. 

His shameful secret: hot, moist breath surrounds him as Sherlock’s bottom lip trails along John’s member. He arches his back with the feeling of Sherlock’s tongue working the slit and the head. His eyes feast on the spectacle of cheekbones glowing with a faint rosy blush as Sherlock hollows his cheeks as he sucks, licks and drags the foreskin over the head with warm, swollen lips. Sherlock _eats_ him. He’s so hungry for it, John can hear him humming with the pleasure brought by trying to shove all of John down his throat. He uses his right hand to tease John’s testicles, which are heavy and drawn tight, ready to explode into the orgasm building at the base of his spine as he watches that gorgeous mouth fucking itself on his cock. 

His hips buck up with the urge to conquer, to thrust even deeper into the lush wetness. John fists his left hand into the bouncing curls to ensure the obedient orifice offering itself will not withdraw as he drives his penis into it, deep and hard. Sherlock lifts his eyes from beneath his thick brows, fixes him with that pale gaze, irises iridescent around pupils glossed over with desire. His right hand falls away while he nods his understanding of John’s need. He opens up his mouth, wide, to show John how far he has taken him in. He is in Sherlock. He is penetrating Sherlock’s clever mouth. Oh God, John’s brain stutters with the realisation. The idea, the unbelievable truth of it, is too much to contemplate. All he can do is close his lips around the two syllables of Sherlock’s name as his cock pulses, spills his seed. The gushes keep welling up, filling Sherlock’s mouth, who rolls his tongue, and adds his own groans to John’s until John has spent himself, all sucked dry and empty. He falls against the back of his chair, wallowing in the aftershocks of his orgasm. Contentment comes out as a sigh as Sherlock reaches up to cup his cheek with one long-fingered hand. 

The soft caress entices John to look down at the eloquent face as it contracts in sensuous ecstasy. Sherlock’s close now. John watches as Sherlock’s eyes slant sideways beneath heavy lids. His slackened mouth pants helplessly, bruised lips parted in abandon. John rests his hand over the silky curls that bedeck Sherlock’s head as sticky-warm semen splatters the inside of his calf. Sherlock’s lips part to form a perfect ‘O’ around a moan. The features of the beautiful creature kneeling between John’s parted legs are highlighted by an expression of the sentiments which mirror those churning inside John. This boundless tapestry of love and lust that knows no beginning, no end. 

John shivers as the thin cotton of Sherlock’s shirt brushes lightly against his inner thigh. The steady rhythm of Sherlock’s shoulder provides evidence that he is still working himself through his pleasure, right hand busy between his legs, hidden from John’s sight.

Oh, John’s mind is so ingenious in offering him only this picture. It definitely deserves a round of applause. Now it doesn’t have to struggle to imagine what Sherlock’s hand on Sherlock’s cock would look like, and John won’t have to admit he’s got no fucking idea. 

He’s never seen Sherlock _that_ naked so no wonder his mind isn’t able to provide him with a picture of that part of Sherlock’s body. 

He doesn’t have one. But that’s not stopping him, of course, because he’s a bloody pervert lusting after his friend and flatmate. Not his boyfriend or lover or husband. No, his friend and flatmate, sic. His _dead_ friend and flatmate. Jesus fucking Christ!

The lush lips John yearns for have long since dissolved into fluids and gases; the slender bones of the fingers lie in neat rows at the bottom of the coffin. Three feet of dank, dark earth separate John from this phantom madness he craves with all the desperate urgency he remembers from his youth. 

Every Friday at three he stands in front of the grave, talking to his friend, telling him how much he misses him. Lately he’s taken to bringing along a plastic carrier bag to seat himself on the ground, back resting against the headstone. His fingers trail the earth as he discloses his shocking discovery to Sherlock. No one can hear him so he confesses to all the lewd scenarios he’s enacted in his head. Each script conveniently turned into a film with Sherlock as the shining star, acquiescing to John’s every whim.

Irene Adler was right after all. He _did want_ Sherlock. John might have shouted at her he wasn’t gay but his body language must have spoken volumes to her. Irene made a living out of reading peoples secret desires and, even though he hadn’t yet known it himself at the time, his subliminal urge must have been to bed Sherlock. 

He had known he loved Sherlock and Sherlock loved him in all the meanings of the word except the one that has always been most eulogised upon. They could have been a long-married couple, given their day-to-day interactions while pottering around the communal areas of the flat. From the minor quibbles over viewing habits – one doesn’t have to be a genius to understand most people would prefer watching an episode of _Doctor Who_ to a documentary on the correct extraction of poison out of the Takifugu fish before preparing it for consumption – to the appropriate method for storing body parts in the fridge – in a Tupperware bowl, thank you! – straight to the shared laughter over Sherlock’s antics with the Tesco chip-and-pin machine the one time he deigned to accompany John on his weekly shopping expedition. They were even closer than Mrs Turner’s married ones, sharing everything except for a bed.

Why had he ever bothered dragging that string of girlfriends over to the flat? They only had to cast one look at the general scenery of their household, glance over the figure of the self-styled ‘sociopath’ poised in his chair, coolly returning their gaze – violin tilted under his chin, ready to play them a farewell serenade – to understand they didn't have a chance in the battle for the heart of Doctor John Watson, let alone his body and soul.

The whole world had known except for him, apparently. He needed a fall to find out he had fallen for his best friend in the most desperate way.

Not that it matters, any of it. Even if Sherlock were still alive John’s film scripts would never have been enacted. Sherlock was his usual brisk self on the subject only hours into their acquaintance, after all. 

John shivers in the damp cold of the bedroom. No use dawdling here. No use getting up and going down either – all things considered – but he could actually do with a cuppa. He won’t start spiking it before one o’clock; one dipsomaniac in the family is more than enough. Yet, he considers people would probably understand him for not spending his time entirely sober these days.

He’s declined all the well-meant but probably not entirely honest invitations to spend Christmas outside the confines of 221B Baker Street. The thought of forcing himself through a Christmas dinner with the Stamford family, Murray and his mates, or at Sarah’s or his sister’s, made John break out in a sweat. The obvious relief fleeting over their faces as he declined has only strengthened him in his decision.

Both Mycroft and Mrs Hudson understood best, of course. Mycroft simply didn’t bring up the issue, politely enquiring after John’s current schedule at the clinic instead. And Mrs Hudson announced she was off to her sister's for the holidays. She tactfully refrained from any decorations. 

John tears the sheets off from his bed and hauls them downstairs to the kitchen to deposit them in the washing machine. The living room is as cold as his bedroom. He puts the kettle on before dragging his feet over to the hearth to start lighting the fire. His eye is struck by a small parcel lying on the mantelpiece. 

Blood-red wrapping paper with a white satin ribbon tied in a neat bow. John picks it up. He sniffs it. He turns it over in his hands to study it from all angles. This wasn’t lying here yesterday evening. Or was it? Who could have left it here? Mrs Hudson came to tell him goodbye two days ago, Mycroft’s last visit was three days before that. Nobody else has been in the flat since then. 

On the other hand, John hasn’t really been paying a lot of attention to his surroundings lately. The whole interior of the flat has been a bit of a blur, to be honest. In the mornings he's been staggering into the kitchen for a cup of tea and nothing else, not with his stomach still heaving from the night before. When he comes home in the evenings, he's usually so tightly wound up he goes straight to passing out in his chair before rousing himself and dragging his frame off to bed in the early hours. He could try and apply Sherlock’s methods: eliminate the impossible, etcetera, but frankly, his whole life feels impossible right now, so that would hardly bring him to the right conclusion. 

John replaces the parcel on the mantelpiece and walks back to the kitchen to make the tea. He pours some water into his mug and drops the teabag in. After a minute he picks it out again, adds some milk and ambles over towards his chair. The parcel is still sitting on the mantelpiece, leaning snugly against the skull.

Blood red. The shade of Irene Adler’s lipstick, but no, she’s dead, long since dead. Jim Moriarty is dead. And Sherlock is dead. And John might as well be … _Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself!_

He sits down and sips his tea. He picks up a medical journal that’s lying on top of the chaos next to his chair and manages to pretend to look at it for three whole minutes. Then he’s out of his chair in a flurry and has ripped open the paper before he can think about what he’s doing. He falls back into his chair in shock once his mind registers what he’s looking at.

John remembers the moment so well. His last birthday before it all happened, shortly after the Baskerville horrors. They were still ignorant of the enormity of the web Moriarty had been busy weaving around Sherlock. Sherlock shrugged his shoulders over the hacking of John’s blog, stating bluntly any three-year old had more knowledge of computers than John, so the only surprise was that it had taken an outsider so long to gain access. John glared at him but refrained from commenting. Really, what was the use?

He was amazed Sherlock had remembered his birthday at all, pleasantly surprised by the congratulations during breakfast. 

Mrs Hudson came up to the flat around eleven, bearing one of her famous sponge cakes, a gesture which deeply touched John. Once the three of them were seated with coffee and cake, Sherlock cleared his throat and announced he had a small present for John as well. From behind the leather chair a huge package materialised, startling John with its weight as Sherlock handed it over. 

John gaped up at him like a fish, opening and shutting his mouth several times.

Sherlock used his hands to shoo him in an impatient gesture. “Yes, yes. Open it.” 

Before John was able to start unpicking the adhesive tape, Sherlock had dropped on his knees next to John’s chair. John felt the eagerness exuding from his frame in great, radiating waves. He sat staring at the title of the book – _For England and St George: A History of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers_ – for a long time before he was able to flick up his eyes to the apprehensive face of his friend. 

The flare of the sun could not match the brilliance of Sherlock’s smile at John’s whispered: “Thank you.” Exactly at that moment, Mrs Hudson pressed the button on her small camera, freezing the moment in time.

Now he stares down at the photograph in the classy silverplate frame he’s holding in his hands. The expectant excitement on Sherlock’s features, the stupid elation on his own. 

The sobs start tearing at his chest and John surrenders to their totality, knowing he’s fought bravely but must lay down his weapons at the feet of the enemy. He feels wretched and lonely, he misses his friend and what might have been, even though he knows it was never to be. He doesn’t understand who put that package on the mantelpiece; it might have been Father Christmas himself for all John cares. 

The tears keep rolling until the collar of his bathrobe starts clinging damply to his throat. He gulps for air deeply several times and shakes his head. The crying has actually helped a bit; the acute, desperate urgency of his grief is somewhat stilled. He pushes himself up out of his chair and gives the frame pride of place next to the skull before sending the photograph a rueful smile. He could do with a shower, with the mind-numbing comfort of the hot spray on top of his head. Once he’s clean he’s going to dress and lay the fire. He’s going to make it through this Christmas, maybe even start on the whiskey a few hours later than usual.

***

Mycroft wasn't very welcoming, to say the least. Sherlock had just set himself down in front of his desk again after his prowl through the guest quarters, when the door of his room was thrown open with a theatricality he would have found hard to match.

“What do you think you’re playing at, Sherlock? The last time you contacted me you admitted Moran was still eluding you. He’s out there, and he’s dangerous!”

Mycroft glared openly. Sherlock gazed back at his brother with the cool detachment Mycroft was so fond of displaying in front of others.

“ 'Nice to see you, Sherlock. How are you, dear brother'?” Sherlock drawled, leaning back into the desk chair with elegant ease.

“I’m serious, Sherlock.”

The urgency in Mycroft’s voice made him drop his affected attitude of bored indifference.

“No one saw me. It’s Christmas eve in case you hadn’t noticed. Every airport is a mad, bobbing sea of people desperate to get to their family and friends right now. The only other person who knows I’m in London is your manservant. I assume _he_ may be trusted … “

A slight twitch of Mycroft’s right eyebrow was the only indication he had heard the provocation. He took three steps into the room. “Really Sherlock, why are you here?” 

Sherlock actually faltered before confessing: “I had to see John.”

“What?” Mycroft’s face quickly took on an aspect of severe disapproval after the initial astonishment that had briefly fleeted over his features. “Sherlock, please. You’re fighting an international crime syndicate almost singlehandedly. This is no time to start experimenting with a new drug.”

That remark had Sherlock knitting his eyebrows in annoyance. “And pray do tell to whom I partially owe the pleasure of them knowing so much about me, hm? You’re not exactly in the most advantageous position to start any reproaches, I’d think. Of course I’m not using. My life is exciting enough, I don’t need the distraction. Besides, John would disapprove. I don’t want to upset him.”

The right corner of Mycroft’s mouth twisted into a wry expression that bordered dangerously close on contempt. 

“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you decided to throw yourself from a building right in front of his eyes. I’d say John would consider finding you with a needle in your arm a picnic compared to the lovely outing you’ve prepared him so far in staging your own death. Unless you would be overdosing, I presume. _That_ particular scene certainly isn’t stored among my happier memories.”

Sherlock glowered at his elder brother. The unerring truth of his words wriggled itself nastily into his mind.

“Would you care to inform me as to how you were actually imagining this scene?” Mycroft continued. “Are you going to jump out in front of him from behind the headstone on your grave? Should we employ the services of Miss Hooper again and have her lay you out on a slab? Did you envision yourself turning up at the surgery, posing as a patient? Or were you going to saunter into 221B Baker Street? Ring the bell first, will you?”

_Thank God Mycroft always insisted upon treating him like he were still a fourteen-year-old. Now he could safely return the mockery._

“Of course not, Mycroft,” Sherlock scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I know very well I can’t do that. Not until Moran is safely locked away in a holding pen or lying dead at my feet. And then … “ He had to gulp. “I don’t want to think about that, not yet. But I need to see John. I’ll go there tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be gone. Moran has got another month of freedom at the most. I know I’m being highly irrational but this is about John, not about sense.”

“No, I can certainly see that.” Mycroft’s eyes flicked over every object in the room except him. “You couldn’t wait another month?”

“No, I really couldn’t.”

“And you’re going to give him a present?”

At the question Sherlock looked down at the picture he had selected, the frame he had nicked from the sideboard in the second guestroom. 

“Actually, yes.”

Mycroft sighed. “You’ve not become _so_ irrational that I have to warn you about not leaving fingerprints, I hope. Just let me add that I consider this to be one of the most thoughtless actions you have ever deemed fit to pull.”

Sherlock wasn’t even going to deign to answer that. 

“While you’re at it, Sherlock,” Mycroft intoned, “I recommend you think up a good story I may have to spin John. I’m really not in the mood to spend one second of brain activity on the straits you seem intent upon getting yourself into. Let alone that poor doctor you claim to love so much.”

Mycroft raised himself in order to loom over Sherlock, who was still seated in front of the desk.

“Your love isn’t a tender thing, Sherlock. _It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden._ Romeo brought more well-thought consideration to his love than you do. I strongly advise you not to proceed with your plan.”

Mycroft straightened, drawing himself up to his full height. Sherlock merely returned the gaze, playing at being unimpressed.

Mycroft sighed. “I know you won’t listen to me, though. Dinner will be served in half an hour.”

Mycroft's exit was most deliberate. Still, he had the decency not to bring up the subject again, once Sherlock did indeed materialise in the dining room after three-quarters of an hour.

***

He’s staring down at John, resting his eyes on _his_ John, who’s tossing and turning in an uneasy sleep that Sherlock can see brings him no rest. 

His gloved fingertips hover above John’s sweaty brow, yearning to brush some comfort over the furrowed lines that crease the forehead. 

Maybe the kernel of this, this tugging sweet ache inside his chest, was already there. He doesn’t know. He has no experience with these things. Perhaps the seed was planted when he overheard John’s denial in front of Irene. Or long before ...

What does it matter? The moment the truth had hit him is etched into his mind. The epiphany that changed his whole world. 

He remembers sitting in the train on their way back from Dartmoor, exhilaration at another cracked case still coursing through his veins. He was explaining the long-term effects of the drug more extensively to John, whose quiet, honest face was gazing up at him so attentively.

A ray of sunlight peeked through the clouds and highlighted a glint of blond in John’s hair.

Sherlock had talked on – he could do that, keep divulging information while his mind was busy elsewhere. Busy fighting the urge to reach out with his hand and discover the texture of that strand of John Watson’s hair. It looked so … precious.

The way John smiled up at him. Why had he never noticed before that John’s smile was so sunny, so genuine? He felt the mind-boggling need to press his lips against that smile in a warm, wet kiss. To feel John’s mouth on his. To taste him and touch the smooth enamel of John’s teeth with his tongue.

John’s right hand was resting on the small folding table in front of him, next to his cup of coffee. Sherlock had to stuff his own left hand deep in the pocket of his jacket in order to prevent himself from simply grabbing John’s hand and starting an extensive exploration of that wonderful extremity. He wanted to skim both his palm and the top of his own hand over the soft skin on top of John’s, the calluses on the outer side of John’s palm and fingertips, the short blond hairs on the first knuckles. John’s nails, so neatly clipped. To examine the whole hand of that capable doctor.

Was this sensual love then? The desperate longing to discover, to claim; to ghost one’s lips over an offered throat, to glide one’s hand along the length of an arm, to gaze and admire how the skin on the shoulder blade shivers under a gentle touch.

Sherlock didn’t know what to do with all this. He pondered asking Mrs Hudson for advice – she had obviously loved that husband of hers before finding out what a reprehensible sod he was – but rejected the notion at the thought of the smatter of excited chatter his confession would initiate. Would that be easier to endure once he and John were actually … together? Lovers? Did he want to be John’s lover? Would John consent to be _his_ lover? 

Should he have asked Lestrade? No, somehow embarrassing. Molly? He wasn’t that cruel. He never even considered questioning Mycroft. He briefly contemplated contacting Irene but decided against it. She would be happy to advise him, but a bit _too happy_ perhaps. He didn’t know whether he would be up to that, not in the state he was in now.

He went about his business, with or without John’s assistance, quietly suffering living with his unsuspecting friend while wracking his brain over the greatest problem it had ever encountered.

Until Moriarty launched the Final Problem at him.

_Mycroft understood the minute he walked into the morgue where Sherlock and Molly had been waiting for him; as soon as he saw the tremor in Sherlock’s hands as he lit himself another cigarette. Mycroft waited until Molly withdrew before whipping around and launching straight into his attack._

_“When did this start?”_

_Sherlock shrugged his shoulders and glared up at his brother._

_“I’ve always understood this question to be futile in the matter at hand. Same as ‘where’, or ‘why’ or ‘how’. It just is.”_

_“Not exactly wonderful timing.”_

_“Thank you for pointing that out, Mycroft. I am most inconveniently aware of the fact.”_

Sherlock is going to delete all this. Once this whole madness is over, he’s going to sit down and actively wipe these months from his hard drive. He just wishes he could do the same for John.

He drops down in the chair at John’s small desk. All these months have been nothing but a distraction from the real problem he’s facing. He still doesn’t know how he should confess his love to John Watson in such a way that John would accept it. Because John rejecting his offer of love is not an option Sherlock will be able to handle. How do other people, ordinary people, do this?

John murmurs and shifts between the sheets, turns onto his belly. Sherlock sits and stares, mesmerised. John tosses, then turns his head, rubbing it into the pillow. His whole body shifts in the bed, like he wants to burrow himself into the mattress.

Entranced, Sherlock listens to the quickened breathing. A vague worry starts spreading its cold tentacles in his chest. Is John ill or…He crouches next to John’s prone form.

“Sher … lock.” He is startled by the gasp that is his name wringing itself out of John’s constricted throat. 

Sherlock stands. His fingertips pull at his bottom lip in an inadvertent gesture. He flicks his eyes down at John, who’s still shifting but with more tranquillity now, in some quiet relaxation. He looks up again and catches his image in the glass door of John’s closet. His face mirrors perfectly the mixed-up jumble of thoughts spiralling through his mind.

_That was John orgasming, just now. He would feel revulsion if it were anyone else, but not with John, never with John._

_So John is – John does … But when did this start? Why hadn’t he noticed, he’s supposed to be the all-discerning genius._

_Oh, all the grief and hurt John must be enduring now. He can’t even begin to contemplate John being dead._

_John had been out on a date the evening before Jim staged his spectacular marketing campaign for all the world. Or had that been a ploy to lull Sherlock into a sense of ease. Surely not, John wasn’t that ingenious …_

_That last date, what had been her name? Unimportant detail, delete it._

_John always seemed … opposed to the idea of them being a couple._

_Had he actually been angling for something, that first evening?_

_Does it matter? God no, none of it does. Oh, John is in love with him, wants him the same way he needs John. How wonderful. Thank you, John. Thank you for feeling for me this way, the same as I do for you._

Sherlock wants to shout with joy.

John has quieted. In his agitation he’s thrown off the covers partway, stomach exposed, bare and vulnerable, sperm smeared out like a gently applied salve. Sherlock resists the urge to reach out and dip his finger in the drying liquid, to feel and taste. Instead he watches the slow rise and fall of John’s chest in fascination until John shivers in his sleep in the cold of the room. 

With careful deliberation Sherlock takes the edge of the top sheet between his fingertips to slowly draw it up over John’s body. He’d like to tuck John in, press a kiss onto the worried brow, but he daren’t do that for fear he will wake him. So he just tiptoes out of the room and down the stairs. 

He stands for a while in the living room, notices how his violin is lying in its case next to his chair, ready to be picked up and played. He stoops and caresses the wood. He’s missed her; she needs to be held like a living thing.

As he straightens, the absence of Christmas decorations strikes him, so different from last year. John and Mrs Hudson overdid the decorating a bit and he felt he owed it to himself to disparage their efforts, but he actually liked it. Now he knows he liked it because it had made John happy.

He turns to the fireplace and brushes his fingers against the packet he deposited earlier on the mantelpiece. Sherlock really hopes the gift will help John during the month to come. He’s chosen the picture so carefully. Mycroft was a fool trying to dissuade him. This photograph is Sherlock’s pledge to John everything will be all right again. Just one more month, that’s all the time he needs. 

Before John he would never have indulged himself in these impractical sentimentalities. 

Just one more month. Then he can start making it up to John. He’ll work so hard. He’ll be so good. Because John _must_ let him – John _will_ let him. Let Sherlock heal – let Sherlock love. Sherlock knows he can do that, he’ll do that for John.

Next Christmas will be so different.


End file.
